Monday, November 17, 2014

Since this blog was hacked recently, I have thought long and hard about what I
want to do with my content.

Over the
years, I have freely given away several cookbooks worth of recipes; which was
great, because I love creating flavorful plant-based food and sharing it with
people.

Most of my
content is backed up, but that doesn’t mean it’s simple to access. Some recipes
are on disk, many have been salvaged from several computers that crashed and
now live on The Boyfriend’s external server.

I was
notoriously not very organized with my files, so recipes and pictures are all
over the place. I recently had to reinstall my OS (after the situation with my
blog) and have created a strict system for myselfso I can organize my files in a more logical sense.

Every single
day, I get numerous requests for recipes. I have spent a lot of time digging
for recipes and copying them for people, but I realized that it is taking too
much of my time to respond to every request.

I have
decided I will start offering customized E-Books. I am going to spend the next
several weeks creating a recipe directory so people can pick and choose:

·5 recipes for $10

·10 recipes for $15

·20 recipes for $30.

I will also
offer customized recipes. The price for this service will be determined by the
recipe.

I know I
have played around with E-book ideas for a while, and I have actually written
the content, but I just can’t justify selling them for the small amount of money
that people are charging for E-books.

I value my
time and creativity too much to do that.

I think that
we are doing each other a disservice by giving away content for free or nearly
free because everyone else is and it has become expected.

I want to
enjoy blogging again, because I do love creating amazing food. I love talking
about it, writing about it and photographing it!

I haven’t
felt enjoyment for a long time, and I will touch more on that in future
writings as I reclaim this blog for myself.

There seems
to have been a slow descent into insanity online, and every post, no matter what
I content I put forward was subject to judgment, scrutiny and more importantly,
I have noticed a very disturbing trend towards Orthorexia within the online
food blogging community.

This concerns me greatly and I do not want to be
associated with any of that.

I may write
about the meal I lovingly prepared for my boyfriend which contains meat. I do
it as an act of service because I love him dearly and it makes me so happy to
take care of him. (I don’t eat meat and never will.)

I will
probably talk more about the methods I use to create food and the food itself
instead of writing recipes. I don’t cook that way. I just create, so stopping
to write recipes constantly takes the joy out of it for me. It makes it feel
like a job, and if I’m going to “work”, then I’m going to get paid.

This doesn’t
mean I won’t ever post recipes, but I certainly am not going to post recipes
for everything I want to talk about!

I am also
going to write quite a bit about my opinions on food and health related matters,
because they have been a very important factor in my life and I have had to
come to terms with a lot of brainwashing regarding food and health.

I realize
this will alienate many of you, but I’m OK with that. There are thousands of
blogs out there to choose from.

This is MY
home now.

You are
welcome in my home, but DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE!

If I sound
like I have a chip on my shoulder, I do!

When my blog
was hacked recently, I completely broke down. YEARS of my work were gone.

HOURS. UPON HOURS. UPON HOURS.

Do you have
idea how much time, money and creative passion went into Melomeals? Probably
not, especially if you are just stopping by for a recipe you pinned.

To have it
just taken away like that made me feel like the last 8 YEARS of my creative and
frankly, my PROFESSIONAL life (It was really the best online resume to showcase
my cooking style!) was stolen from me.

It almost
broke me.

It didn’t help that it was just after my second foot surgery in a
year. The last 2 years of my life has been extremely difficult, and everything I
loved doing both socially and professionally has been compromised and
diminished due to health problems.

I am now,
finally, on the road to recovery. The last foot surgery I had, has fixed my
foot, but I still have months of recovery to go before I can hopefully work on
my feet again full time.

I now see things
in a new light. This is a turning point for me and it has made me very clear on
my feelings. For those of you still with me:

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Since my
Melomeals blog was hacked recently, I have thought long and hard about what I
want to do with my content.

Over the
years, I have freely given away several cookbooks worth of recipes; which was
great, because I love creating flavorful plant-based food and sharing it with
people.

Most of my
content is backed up, but that doesn’t mean it’s simple to access. Some recipes
are on disk, many have been salvaged from several computers that crashed and
now live on The Boyfriend’s external server.

I was
notoriously not very organized with my files, so recipes and pictures are all
over the place. I recently had to reinstall my OS (after the situation with my
blog) and have created a strict system for myselfso I can organize my files in a more logical sense.

Every single
day, I get numerous requests for recipes. I have spent a lot of time digging
for recipes and copying them for people, but I realized that it is taking too
much of my time to respond to every request.

I have
decided I will start offering customized E-Books. I am going to spend the next
several weeks creating a recipe directory so people can pick and choose:

·5 recipes for $10

·10 recipes for $15

·20 recipes for $30.

I will also
offer customized recipes. The price for this service will be determined by the
recipe.

I know I
have played around with E-book ideas for a while, and I have actually written
the content, but I just can’t justify selling them for the small amount of money
that people are charging for E-books.

I value my
time and creativity too much to do that.

I think that
we are doing each other a disservice by giving away content for free or nearly
free because everyone else is and it has become expected.

I want to
enjoy blogging again, because I do love creating amazing food. I love talking
about it, writing about it and photographing it!

I haven’t
felt enjoyment for a long time, and I will touch more on that in future
writings as I reclaim this blog for myself.

There seems
to have been a slow descent into insanity online, and every post, no matter what
I content I put forward was subject to judgment, scrutiny and more importantly,
I have noticed a very disturbing trend towards Orthorexia within the online
food blogging community. This concerns me greatly and I do not want to be
associated with any of that.

So, from
this day forward, this blog is going to be my home.I have never really felt comfortable
expressing my opinions and writing authentically because of the backlash, but
that stops today.

I may write
about the meal I lovingly prepared for my boyfriend which contains meat. I do
it as an act of service because I love him dearly and it makes me so happy to
take care of him. (I don’t eat meat and never will.)

I will
probably talk more about the methods I use to create food and the food itself
instead of writing recipes. I don’t cook that way. I just create, so stopping
to write recipes constantly takes the joy out of it for me. It makes it feel
like a job, and if I’m going to “work”, then I’m going to get paid.

This doesn’t
mean I won’t ever post recipes, but I certainly am not going to post recipes
for everything I want to talk about!

I am also
going to write quite a bit about my opinions on food and health related matters,
because they have been a very important factor in my life and I have had to
come to terms with a lot of brainwashing regarding food and health.

I realize
this will alienate many of you, but I’m OK with that. There are thousands of
blogs out there to choose from.

When my blog
was hacked recently, I completely broke down. YEARS of my work were gone.

HOURS. UPON HOURS. UPON HOURS.

Do you have
idea how much time, money and creative passion went into Melomeals? Probably
not, especially if you are just stopping by for a recipe you pinned.

To have it
just taken away like that made me feel like the last 8 YEARS of my creative and
frankly, my PROFESSIONAL life (It was really the best online resume to showcase
my cooking style!) was stolen from me.

It almost
broke me. It didn’t help that it was just after my second foot surgery in a
year. The last 2 years of my life has been extremely difficult, and everything I
loved doing both socially and professionally has been compromised and
diminished due to health problems.

I am now,
finally, on the road to recovery. The last foot surgery I had, has fixed my
foot, but I still have months of recovery to go before I can hopefully work on
my feet again full time.

I now see things
in a new light. This is a turning point for me and it has made me very clear on
my feelings. For those of you still with me,